Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., announced that she will step down as U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner in March. She was nominated in May 2009 as the 21st Commissioner of FDA.
Prior to joining FDA, Dr. Hamburg served as New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner from 1991 to 1997, was the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1997, and served as the Senior Scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative from 2005 to 2009.
Stephen Ostroff, M.D., FDA's Chief Scientist, will serve as the Acting Commissioner until a permanent replacement is appointed. Dr. Ostroff joined FDA in 2013 as Chief Medical Officer in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and Senior Public Health Advisor the FDA's Office of Foods and Veterinary Medicine. Before that, he served as Deputy Director of National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and was Acting Director of CDC's Select Agent Program.